


(Ruth 1:16-17)

by orphan_account



Series: Stories of Nod [2]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Mention of sickness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-20
Updated: 2016-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 01:59:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5767030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mismatched in a collection of stolen things, she looked about as unfitted to be standing there as the clothes she wore. The hem of her floral skirt was drenched in mud and stuck to the leather of a worn pair of heeled boots. With one last nervous tug of her blood-red jacket, she started toward Sarah."</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Ruth 1:16-17)

**Author's Note:**

> I was writing something else when I suddenly thought that there needed to be a fic where Sarah and Helena actually talk to each other in the season 2 finale. Added to Stories of Nod because of the biblical imagery but it's a stand alone fic, no prior knowledge necessary

The stairwell to Felix’s apartment was narrow and cylindrical with iron stairs winding up like a vine. Sarah stood at the base of the stairwell, following its cyclical track up the different levels until she reached the top. Upstairs, her sister was dying; her lungs were blotted with sores and her body was tied about with plastic cannula. Upstairs, her daughter recovered from a futile surgery like an unwitting lamb carried off to the slaughter.

“Sarah, come out here,” Felix called, “There’s someone you have to see.”

Turning around, she saw her brother framed by the entryway window and opened the door, only to find Art standing beside him. They stood side-by-side with matching expressions of squinting uncertainty on their faces. She was about to ask the strange vessel Art gripped uncomfortably when he stepped aside, revealing the stark image of Helena behind.

Mismatched in a collection of stolen things, she looked about as unfitted to be standing there as the clothes she wore. The hem of her floral skirt was drenched in mud and stuck to the leather of a worn pair of heeled boots. With one last nervous tug of her blood-red jacket, she started toward Sarah.

“Helena, no—you can’t come inside.”

“I want to see them,” she said and continued inside so that she and Sarah were enveloped by the musk of wet wood.

When Felix and Art moved to follow suit, Sarah waved them back and watched as their faces became framed once again by the closed door—looking just as unsure as before. Once inside, however, Helena seemed to lose momentum and glanced about her with quick, furtive glances. Her hands clawed at the edge of her jacket in attempt to hide the way her fingers curled naturally into a fist.

“Are you okay?” Sarah asked. Her voice found a natural groove in her voice that was both gravelly and soft, which always seemed to come out with Helena.

“The others took me in after you left—,” Helena hesitated and her eyes found the hollow in Sarah’s cheek, rather than her eyes. “But that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s done. I want to meet your people.”

“It’s too soon, Helena, far too soon. Cos is sick and she’s only growing weaker, one touch out of place could ruin her.”

“Let me show you I’m not a threat to her.”

“This isn’t some test, Helena, it’s her _life._ ”

As she spoke, Helena reached over, grasped her hands at the knuckles, and folded them together so that neither could see where Sarah’s hands ended and where the others began. Helena’s hands were as warm as ever, despite the frigid air outside and the hours she’d travelled in the sluicing cold rain. Her expression was torn between something angelic and animalistic, with eyes a deep wind-blown red, lips chapped-raw, and rounded cheeks colored a soft pink.

In her eyes was the ever-present rock-against-bone glance of hunger, but it was now mangled with a messy sort of hope.

She dropped to her knees, dragging Sarah’s hands with her, and then burrowed her head in the crux between her weakened knees.

Tearing her hands from Helena’s she held them straight in the air and yelped with shock. With a voice rubbing harshly against the back of her throat, she sputtered: “Come on, get up. Get off the floor. Stand _up_ Helena.”

Helena was whispering something repeatedly to the cloth of Sarah’s jeans, in a voice so fervent she seemed almost in prayer. It took a few cycles for Sarah’s ears to pick up on the words her sister spoke, and even longer for her to understand them. Until, at last, they chimed in her mind with the low brassy sound of a bell and clung there with digging fingers.

“Don’t let us be separate from each other. I will follow you where you lead, love what you love, and do as you do. Your sisters shall be my sisters. Our fates are entwined, not even death shall part us.”

The words she might have spoken a few minutes prior became nothing more than unformed clay in her mouth. Silently, her hand touched the baby-soft tufts of blonde hair that lay just above Helena’s ear.

“Okay, Helena,” she said, almost disbelieving the words as she spoke them. “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> “ And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”


End file.
